To Beijing

Train Number G116

Theresa and I had been over a year-and-a-half in China, and still not gone to Beijing yet.  So, a few weeks ago we finally got motivated to make the trip.  We'd been purposely waiting until the late autumn, as that is supposed to be one of the best times for weather.  Since our time in Suzhou is drawing short, we needed to go this autumn, as we will not be here for the next one.

Comfortable First-Class Seating

The best way to get to Beijing from here has always been by train.  Until last year, that meant taking a soft sleeper berth in an express train for the overnight trip.  There are also hard sleepers and seats available at lower cost, for those travelling on a budget.  For those travelling with almost no budget, there are options for standing room and/or slower trains. (The express train, which stops only at major cities,  takes 10 to 14 hours.  The slow trains, which stop at every village along the way, take almost a full 24 hours.)

Air travel has always been an option, too, but you pay more for the ticket.   And the nearest airport is in Shanghai, which means you're waste at least 4 hours in travel to the airport and security checks and boarding and all that.  With the train you can pretty much walk right into the station, present you ticket to the checkers, and then go straight to the platform for boarding.  At the appointed time, the train arrives, it stops, you get on, and it leaves.  No waiting for a runway.  No air traffic control delays.

Last year, they opened the bullet train lines from Beijing to Shanghai.  Luckily, Suzhou is a big enough city to rate a major stop on the line.  The new trains take only 5 hours or so for the 750 mile trip; from the brand new Suzhou North Station (built just for the bullet trains) to the Beijing South Railway Terminal.  Air travel is not even worth consideration now.  Travel to Beijing by train has always been more convenient.  Now it is actually faster by rail than by air....if you measure from doorstep to doorstep.  A second class seat costs about $85, one-way, which is comparable to the cost of a soft sleeper on the old express trains.  Though reasonably low, that cost puts the bullet train out of reach for most of the poorer travellers.  They still make the trip for $15 or $20 on the older trains.

When they first opened the line, the bullet trains would reach a cruising speed of 350 km/hr...almost 220 mph.  That was back in the heady days when Chinese high-speed-rail seemed to be leapfrogging the Japanese Shinkansen to become the most advanced in the world.  Then came a series of scandals and a horrific train collision in ZheJiang province.  Public trust was reduced and, soon after, so was the speed of the trains. Normal cruising speed is now 300 km/hr (185 mph).  Between Suzhou and Beijing, there are a number of stops along the way which reduce the average speed to about 240 km/hr (150 mph).

Wheat Fields

Travelling by day on the bullet train, rather than overnight on the sleeper trains, affords a great opportunity to see the countryside.  The train route runs through the breadbasket of China; first through the Yangtze River flood plains and then into the vast North China Plain.   For most of the journey, the view is of wide, open spaces of farmland.  Every few minutes we'd pass through a small farming village. Every hour or so we'd stop at larger city.  Seeing so much open farmland, it is hard to picture that this train route passes through one of the most densely populated regions on the globe.

Wheat fields dominate the landscape once you pass north of Nanjing  We'd crossed over the famous rice-wheat dividing line.  Rice is the staple crop for Southern China. North of the Yangtze, the growing seasons become too short.  Wheat is the the staple food for the Northerners, and their cuisine is based upon breads and noodles and dumplings.  As we passed in early November, the fields were showing advanced sprouts of next year's crop.  The farther north we travelled, the sprouts became smaller and smaller until, finally, you could see only fields that were newly planted or waiting to be planted.

Corn Drying in the Open Air

We saw a lot of corn too.  Very little growing corn...but we saw a lot of newly harvested corn drying out in the sun.  Every flat, dry surface seemed to be covered with corn.  In the villages, the flat roofs of the houses were covered with drying corn.  Paved parking lots and the shoulders of paved roads were covered with drying corn.  In some places, it looked like they had closed entrance and exit ramps to the highways...and covered them with drying corn.  I'd never realized before, but China is second only to the U.S. in corn production.

Most of the corn, I suspect, is destined to feed the pigs.  Some also to feed the chickens and the ducks.  It will go to produce more pork snout and pig trotters and pork belly and chicken feet and duck tongues.  Corn must be critical to the food chain which supplies protein-based delicacies of Chinese cuisine..